The simple Netflix trick you NEED to know

It’s Christmas time, and one of the best things about the festive season is the extra time it gives us to spend with that special companion we can always rely on - Netflix.

The thing is, while Netflix makes it easy to find all the great shows everyone wants to watch, it only recommends shows and genres similar to the ones we’ve previously watched. Which means we can sometimes get into a bit of a viewing ‘loop’.

So when we want to try watching something a bit different, how do we discover the shows that don’t fit into ‘trending’ hits or the tailored suggestions Netflix puts in front of us?

Well, there’s a trick to help solve that problem which will inspire our Netflix viewing over Christmas and for years to come, and it’s all to do with unlocking Netflix’s hidden programming genres.

What we need are Netflix’s secret codes.

These secret codes open up a wealth of shows we’d likely never otherwise find. And we’re not just talking about the typical genres you might expect, like ‘comedies’ or ‘dramas’. We’re also talking about super niche categories we’d never search for like ‘Coming-of-age-dramas-based-on-books’, or ‘Visually-striking-imaginative-movies’.

So how do we do it? Easy. It’s as simple as logging into our Netflix accounts and entering www.netflix.com/browse/genre/xxxx into the URL, then replacing the ‘xxxx’ with the number that corresponds to the particular Netflix subcategory.

There are a lot of these secret codes. Like, thousands of them. And sometimes you can simply have too much choice, so here’s a shortlist we’ve pulled together to try out over the Chrissy period.

Action and Adventure - 1365

Classic action and adventure - 46576

Action comedies - 43040

Action thrillers - 43048

Adventures - 7442

Children & Family Movies - 783

Education for kids - 10659

Disney - 67673

Family features - 51056

TV cartoons - 11177

Kids TV - 27346

Classic Movies - 31574

Classic comedies - 31694

Classic dramas - 29809

Classic thrillers - 46588

Film noir - 7687

Comedies - 6548

Dark comedies - 869

Mockumentaries - 26

Stand up comedy - 11559

Documentaries - 6839

Crime documentaries - 9875

Historical documentaries - 5349

Science and nature documentaries - 2595

TV Shows - 83

British TV shows - 52117

Food & Travel TV - 72436

Reality TV - 9833

Dramas - 5763

Crime dramas - 6889

Period pieces - 12123

Tearjerkers - 6384

Horror Movies - 8711

B-horror movies - 8195

Teen screams - 52147

Independent Movies - 7077

Experimental movies - 11079

Independent comedies - 4195

Romantic Movies - 8883

Romantic favourites - 502675

Quirky romance - 36103

Romantic comedies - 5475

Thrillers - 8933

Gangster movies - 31851

Mysteries - 9994

Spy thrillers - 9147

LGBTQ Movies - 5977

Gay and lesbian comedies - 7120

Gay and lesbian documentaries - 4720

If this shortlist isn’t enough and you want to check out more codes then head over to our friends at WhistleOut, who helped us pull this list together and have compiled a much bigger one.

Alternatively if you’re feeling lucky just mash random numbers together at the end of the URL and see where that takes you!